Pregnancy Symptoms Week by Week: What Can You Expect?

Have you been trying to conceive? Are you newly pregnant and been trying to find what to expect in the next few days of your pregnancy? Are you feeling tired these past few days?

You might be pregnant! Here are the week-by-week pregnancy symptoms that will occur during first 4 weeks of pregnancy.

At the beginning of your menstrual period cycle, your follicles (fluid filled sac in your ovary) release an egg and travels through the fallopian tube; the egg stays there for 12 to 24 hours and waits to be fertilized. This process is called ovulation. If the egg is not fertilized within that time period, the unfertilized egg will travel down to your uterine wall to extract itself together with the uterine lining, thus called the menstrual period.  If you are trying to conceive, take note that you are fertile 14 days after the first day of your period, this is the best time to try to get pregnant.

Pregnancy Symptoms in Week 1: Check Your Body Temperature

Are you speculating you might be pregnant?

As early as now, there will be no physical changes or early pregnancy symptoms. Though there’s no physical change outside your body, inside your uterus there’s an ongoing fast paced development that will soon home your baby.

During this stage, if you are regularly monitoring your Basal Body Temperature, you will notice that it is higher than usual. If the fertilization is successful, your Basal Body Temperature will be higher. This is the first symptom that you should look out for.

Symptoms vary from one woman to another but you can also look out for mood swing, nausea, vomiting, gas, constipation and tender breast.

Symptoms in Week 2:  Blame It To The Hormones

Your journey to motherhood is now beginning; you will notice the symptoms of pregnancy are starting to show like dizziness, vomiting, nausea, tender breast, morning sickness and mood swing. All of these are brought by the hormonal changes.

During pregnancy make sure to eat healthy foods, your body needs enough healthy food to aid in the development of the precious being inside you. But as early as now you have to start taking 0.4 milligrams or 400 micrograms of folic acid. Folic Acid helps in development of your fetus’ brain and reduces the risk of neural diseases.

Pregnancy Symptoms in Week 3: Extra Calories Please

By this time your breast started to feel tenderer and you feel more tired or fatigued. It is because your body needs extra 300 calories per day while you are pregnant, you don’t need to eat for two, just enough to give what your baby needs.

During this stage of early pregnancy you might loss down some weight as your appetite change, you feel nausea and dizziness and mood swing that comes because of hormonal changes.

Inside your womb the egg is now fertilized and is now known as blastocyst, the outer layer of your developing egg will become the placenta that will bring oxygen and nutrients to your baby and the inner part will become the embryo. The blastocyst is just so little during this time. It’s not yet a fetus or a baby, just a group of cells that develops rapidly; it’s not yet bigger than the head of a pin or tip of a pen.

What’s going on in Week 4: The Little Traveler Is On The Move

During the fourth week of your pregnancy, the fertilized egg has now traveled down to your uterine wall and is now implanted itself. This process is called implantation. The early pregnancy symptoms that you have experienced during the first few weeks like nausea, dizziness, vomiting and morning sickness will still be there together with light blood spotting and cramps because implantation causes light bleeding. Don’t be scared, it’s just your baby on the move.

The implanted cell starts to grow and now look like a toad than a human. It starts to develop its brain and its nervous system is now obvious. The face has started to show and the primitive organs are now organized.

If you can’t wait to know if you are really pregnant, try to take home pregnancy test. It is as reliable as the pregnancy test given at your doctor’s clinic. It will test the presence of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) that is only present in the body of a pregnant woman. Be sure to use clean tools and pregnancy test kit that can be bought in pharmacies without prescription together with your freshly secreted wee from your bladder.

You got a positive result? Congratulations! Start to plan a visit to your health care provider for your pre-natal check up. As early as now you should be thinking of baby names and formulate your birth plans to present to your doctor.